Ealing Council has paused fridge and freezer collections and Greenford Road tip cannot take them either. Keep yours at home: one left on the pavement can be fined as fly-tipping.

Ealing Council has stopped collecting old fridges and freezers, and the borough’s only tip, at Greenford Road, has stopped accepting them too. The council announced the pause on 6 November. It has given no date for restarting.

The reason is a national shortage of plants that can recycle cooling appliances. Greenford Road has run out of space to store the ones it already holds, the council said.

What has stopped

  • Bulky waste collections no longer take fridges or freezers. The council’s bulky items page now lists them under “What we do not collect”. Sofas, beds, wardrobes and washing machines are still collected.
  • Greenford Road reuse and recycling centre will not take them. The council’s recycling centre page says the service is suspended “due to a national shortage in specialist recycling facilities”.
  • Other tips are no help. The council asks residents not to take them to any other household recycling centre, because those are short of capacity as well.

Why it has happened

Fridges and freezers contain gases and materials that have to be removed in specialist plants before the rest can be recycled. The council gave three reasons for the shortage:

  • this summer’s heatwaves broke more appliances than usual, so more need recycling
  • three UK recycling facilities have closed, through a fire, a bankruptcy and a change of use
  • with nowhere to send them, council sites have filled up

Ealing is not alone. In August the Local Government Association warned of a “mountain” of broken fridges. It said its research had found “dozens of councils” already forced to stop or restrict fridge and freezer collections.

The LGA also said some producer compliance schemes had delayed or stopped collections from council sites. Those schemes are paid for by appliance manufacturers, who are legally responsible for funding the recycling of household electrical waste. The LGA wants the producers to pay councils back for the cost of storing the backlog.

Councillor Dominic Moffitt, the council’s cabinet member for climate action, said: “I know this will be frustrating news for residents who need to get rid of old fridges and freezers. This is a national problem affecting councils and recycling centres across the country, caused by a shortage of facilities that can process these appliances.”

He added that the council would “restart collections as soon as recycling facilities become available again”.

What it means for you

If a fridge or freezer dies this winter, you have three options.

  1. Keep it at home. Store it safely within the boundary of your property until the service restarts. A garage, shed or side return will do.
  2. Ask the shop selling your new one to take the old one. Many retailers run a take-back scheme when they deliver a replacement. The council suggests asking before you buy.
  3. Pay a licensed waste carrier. If you hire someone to take it, check them first on the Environment Agency’s register of waste carriers and get a receipt. If an unlicensed collector dumps it, the receipt is what protects you.

Do not put it out on the pavement. The council says an appliance left on the street can be treated as fly-tipping, and you could be fined.

Everything else at the tip carries on as normal. Our Greenford tip opening times page has the winter hours and how to book a slot, and our Ealing bin collection days page covers the £30 bulky collection for the items the council does still take.

We will update this story when collections restart.